The
file had all sorts of interesting stuff, including a booklet entitled,
"Careers at IBM". It talks about the different jobs available
within the IBM Corporation of fifteen years ago, including in the typewriter
and office equipment departments. I'm sure I can find some interesting
stuff to quote from it over the next few days.
The story of my college recruiting experience with IBM is a fun one. Most
of you are familiar with the typical campus recruiting process. At
the time, IBM made prospective candidates take an aptitude test. My
recruiter told me that I scored the highest of anyone he had ever seen.
He arranged for me to interview for a Systems Engineer job in the
IBM regional office in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
There was only one problem: I didn't own a car. And at 20 years of
age, I was too young to rent one. And there was no real way to fly
from Bloomington, Indiana, to Fort Wayne.
Solution: Greyhound bus. So picture this -- here's Ed with a white
shirt, blue suit, red tie, and wingtips taking a 6 AM Greyhound bus from
Bloomington to Indianapolis. At Indy, I transferred to another bus,
which of course ran late into Fort Wayne. My recruiter met me at
the bus station and took me to lunch, where he proceeded to eat a sandwich
and fries with a fork and a knife. I did four interviews that
day, but knew that I wanted to be in Chicago, not Fort Wayne.
Immediately thereafter, IBM decided to lay off about 10,000 people (think
back to the John Akers era...). For obvious reasons, I received the
letter above.
I was working part time for Indiana University computing services at the
time; the reaction of my then-boss to the rejection -- "You didn't
want to work for those blue-suited bureaucrats, anyway!"